


Scraps of a Life Well-Lived

by timeisweird



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Awesome Donna Noble, Ficlet Collection, Fluff, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Humor, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Mental Health Issues, Neurodivergent Doctor (Doctor Who), Nonbinary Doctor (Doctor Who), Prompt Fill, Slice of Life, Some Plot, Tags May Change, Time Lords Are Aliens, if applicable
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2020-07-24 01:21:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 7,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20017924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeisweird/pseuds/timeisweird
Summary: The stars always knew that Donna Noble was going to be brilliant. It just takes a bit for everyone else to realize.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's about time i had a fic for dumping little ideas and bits of prose. turns out, most of it involves donna.

“Doctor?” she calls out as she walks through the corridors. 

She hears an answering call of, “In here!” from a door she’s just passed. Donna takes a few steps back to peek her head into a kitchen (which eerily resembles the kitchen an old friend of hers had). 

The Doctor’s standing at the sink. Their suit jacket’s draped (more like thrown) over the back of a chair, and they’ve got the sleeves of their dress shirt rolled up as they–

“Er, what are you doing?”

“Washing dishes,” they say, before glancing over their shoulder at her. “Something wrong with that?” 

“Why are you washing dishes?” she asks, genuinely baffled. “You don’t – you don’t wash dishes, you don’t even rinse them. You leave them out in piles ‘til the TARDIS takes pity on you and vanishes them into thin air, or whatever the hell.”

They mutter something under their breath. 

“What was that?”

“Dishwasher’s broke,” they say, slightly louder. They sound rather irked. 

She walks over to them and leans against the counter as they continue to scrub a plate that’s got some blue syrup dried onto it, just to get a glimpse of their face as she tells them, “You don’t _own_ a dishwasher, Doctor.”

“Yes I do!” they protest. “It’s just – not one you’re capable of perceiving. And before you say anything, I’ve already _tried_ fixing it. I’ve–” their voice drops, like they’re embarrassed to say. “–I’ve got to order the parts.” 

“Right…” she says slowly, letting that settle in the air. “So, dishwasher’s broke, huh?”

“Yup.”

Donna nudges their side with her elbow, and they frown when the motion splashes a bit of water on them. “Scoot over, Spaceman,” she says and grabs a tea rag from the hook. “I’ll dry them for you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [cocks gun] moon's haunted
> 
> find on me on tumblr @ [timeisweird!](https://timeisweird.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> considering how much i write for donna and how much i adore her character, i think i'm legally obligated to write something like this.
> 
> cw: implied/referenced abuse (or controlling parent stuff, you know how sylvia can be), vague mentions of blood,

There are three things that Donna Noble is not afraid of (in addition to everything else she is not afraid of, of course): 

  1. Doing what she's got to do to get the job done. Even if this includes getting on the bus alone so that she can get a proper holiday like she knows she deserves. She's been good this year. Probably. 
  2. Her mum. (No matter how she may act when she’s yelled at for putting off her chores or for getting a poor mark in school, and no matter how much the words linger and sting for ages after. She’s not afraid, she’s _not.)_
  3. Strangers. Sure, she knows to kick and scream bloody murder if anyone grabs her, and she knows she's very good at it, but she’s never been intimidated or scared from being around someone she doesn’t know. 



Except, maybe this stranger. 

They’re tall, taller than her parents and she thought they were the tallest people she’s ever met. They’ve a long brown coat that reaches all the way down to their ankles, and underneath that, they wear a tattered brown suit. 

She climbs off the bus and walks along the pavement, taking in the sights and sounds and triumph of her arrival in Strathclyde, only for this stranger to fall into step with her soon after, taking up the space between her and the road. 

She glances up at them. “Who’re you?” she demands, though she keeps walking. 

“Oh, nobody really,” they say, meeting her stare with a smile that doesn’t quite meet their eyes. 

She huffs, and looks back at what’s in front of her. It’s Sunday, and the shops are closed since it’s so late in the day, so there’s only a couple people around. Enough for her to not feel to worried. “Then I’m nobody too,” she mutters, kicking at a pebble in her path.

The tall stranger winces (ugh, she can’t help glancing back up at them out of the corner of her eye, just to see their reaction), and breathe in through their teeth. “I wouldn’t say that… what’s your name?” 

She decides she likes their reaction, so she tells them. “‘M Donna. Donna Noble.” Then she adds, because they’ve reminded her, “I’ve been thinking about adding an H in there.” 

“Donna H. Noble,” they hum, considering. “Why an H?” 

“Dunno,” she shrugs. Then, louder, with the realization that since she shared something, she ought to get something in return, she asks, “What’s  _ your _ name, stranger?” 

They grab at their chest like she’s wounded them, but she knows when adults are playing around or not. Still, their fingers seem too rigid, their movements too strained. “What’s wrong with being a stranger?” they ask her. “Strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet.” 

She supposes that’s true, for some people. She’s not sure that it applies to her and this stranger, though. They seem to sense this thought. Maybe she lets it show on her face. 

“Yeah, maybe not,” they breathe, then they laugh, but it’s more of a pained sigh. “I’ve always been a bit too optimistic about that.” 

Her eyes latch onto a stain on their coat, a splattered spot that’s a darker brown than the rest of the fabric. Then they put their hands in their pockets, and the movement shifts the fabric just enough so that she no longer can see the stain. 

They look down at her, and she looks up at them. The two of them have stopped walking, and now stand in the middle of the pavement. A few pedestrians walk around them. “I hope you have a good holiday, Donna Noble,” the tall stranger says, and it’s the most honest-sounding thing they’ve said the whole conversation. 

She never told them that she was on holiday. “Thanks,” she says, anyway, because that’s the sort of thing that Mum’s been very insistent about lately. Manners and politeness, and all that. 

They give her a short wave, before spinning on their heel and walking to the other side of the road. They don’t look before they cross (like  _ she’s _ been told to do) but nothing bad happens, anyway, and then she’s standing in her spot as they walk off, until she loses sight of them entirely. 

It’s a while later that she hears someone say her name – in a worried, furious shout this time, rather than a hard, gentle voice that somehow leaves no room for debate, as if the conversation was a debate at all. She turns around just in time to see her mum rushing towards her, and then she’s being bundled up in a tight hug that makes her cringe. Holiday over, then. 

“What were you  _ thinking, _ Donna,” Mum scolds. “Never run off like that again, you could’ve gotten hurt!”

She squirms in the hug and groans, “I was  _ fine, _ Mum.”

“Everyone’s been so  _ worried, _ love,” she continues, and it makes Donna feel just bad enough to keep the hug going.

“Sorry, Mum,” she mumbles, and maybe she admits to herself that while the whole thing was very fun and very adventurous, she was also a bit hungry and a bit tired and that being able to rest her head on someone’s shoulder is  _ maybe  _ a bit comforting. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> while you are free to interpret literature and stories in any way you desire as the audience, i do not mean for this ending to be interpreted as me saying donna’s perceptions of her mom’s behavior are over dramatic or misunderstood. 
> 
> instead, i wanted to show a bit about how they have a complicated relationship that makes it hard for donna to realize that sylvia has hurt her in the past or continues to do so, even if it is not a constant, consistent thing or outrageously obvious. In this, donna’s a young kid, and as a kid and as someone personally involved in the relationship, it can be very hard to look at these things properly and accurately. i do definitely regard sylvia as having been and continuing to be hurtful towards donna throughout her life, as well as being abusive in many (largely emotional) ways.
> 
> find on me on tumblr @ [timeisweird!](https://timeisweird.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: talk of nightmares, nothing specific, but it's sort of implied that traveling space and time is kinda fucked up and can fuck you up sometimes

It was a habit she picked up sometime during her travels in the incredible wooden timeship that was the TARDIS. It didn’t exactly start as something positive. Rather, it was a bit like… talk therapy, the writing. 

The sleepless nights and the nightmares when she  _ could _ sleep were never pleasant, those thoughts and memories and echoed emotions swirling around in her head, making rest impossible. It was the Ship’s night cycle, at the time, and she didn’t know where the Doctor had wandered off to, nor did she feel comfortable with tracking them down and forcing them to listen to her ramble on about some of the less-than-exciting incidents they’ve experienced. She didn’t even know if it would help anything.

Donna also didn’t want them worry that she suddenly changed her mind about traveling with them because they seem to keep landing on planets and in times where people are dying or fighting or what have you. She definitely hasn’t changed her mind. It’s just… she’s only human. 

The next time she was startled awake by dreams about sharp teeth and sharper grins and glowing red eyes that seethe with (rightful) pain and anger, she heaved herself out of bed and grabbed the notebook she put on her nightstand for such an occasion. She found a cozy room to exist in (this time, it was a dim, bubble-shaped room with twinkling lights set into the walls that gave just enough light to make writing plausible), plopped herself down on a beanbag chair, and poured everything out onto the paper until her wrist was sore. 

It helped, a little. She didn’t get back to sleep that night, but the ache in her chest lessened. So she kept at it. 

She filled a notebook over the weeks (were they weeks? It was getting hard to keep track), and then another. She kept them in the drawer of her nightstand and made sure to get a lock for said drawer, asking the TARDIS very nicely (and a bit sternly) for the alteration. Wouldn’t do for the Doctor to find them. They’ve been understanding of her occasional need for space and privacy, but they do have the tendency to be a bit nosy. 

And then as it went on, she found herself getting more and more lenient about the subjects with which she wrote about. Nightmares, fears, yes, but also the pleasanter dreams and experiences, the adventures that are just so bizarre that she had to see it written down to believe it. It became something of a hobby, more than just a way to cope with the darker things hiding in the void of space. 

It was never anything she felt she could do more with, she wasn’t a  _ good _ writer by any means. But Donna didn’t take that to mean she should stop, so she didn’t. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is SO self indulgent and so obviously me projecting onto donna im SO sorry, but once i read something that talked about her picking up writing as a journalist post-je and now i can't let that idea go at all. also why did i write this in past tense? i've got no clue
> 
> find on me on tumblr @ [timeisweird!](https://timeisweird.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> cw: nothing in particular, but it is implied that the dr doesn't like cats due to bad past experiences that could be considered somewhat traumatic (you know, on account of almost being killed a few times by cat-nuns, and whatever the hell happened in that one 7 era episode, and who knows what else), and donna is a little dismissive at first before she realizes.

The Doctor’s bent over the console with a high-tech vision enhancing device in their hands that is most definitely not a simple magnifying glass. Currently, they’re enhancing their ability to observe these few split wires that they noticed a few minutes ago. Like the wires had been chewed or clawed at, leaving them to spark and sizzle against a few other delicate pieces of their wonderful timeship. They grumble and murmur to themself, absorbed in thought. 

They are then jolted out of their concentration by a fluffy body suddenly jumping onto their back and crawling the rest of the way to sit precariously on their shoulder. The Doctor startles, but manages to keep themself steady enough so to not jostle the cat from its newfound perch. “Donna!” they yell. “You _have_ to do something about this cat!” 

She strolls into the console room in a pair of pajamas, not at all concerned about the Doctor’s current situation. She’s got a towel in her hands, which she uses to roughly dry the hair on her head. Only recently has she gotten comfortable enough to let people (specifically, the Doctor) see when she hasn’t completely dried and styled her hair after a shower. Probably on account of how frizzy it looks right now. “It’s catsitting, Doctor. Would you rather have to make a bunch of stops for me to check on Oscar every day?” 

They glare at her, only for the glare to be interrupted when the cat shifts his weight on their shoulder, and they freeze. “I’d rather you had just declined when your friend asked you.” 

“And let Selena leave Oscar with Mark?” she asks. “No way, Mark can’t keep a cactus alive to save his life.” 

“Fine,” they concede, because the point really isn’t worth making. “Can you just _try_ to keep… Oscar out of the console room? He keeps chewing up the wires. _And_ disrupting my work.” 

Donna walks over and gently takes the cat from their shoulders. Oscar trills at the touch, before she lets him jump to the floor. “Like you actually get any work done in here,” she says. “But fine, I’ll try.” 

The Doctor rolls their shoulder and tries not to grimace too deeply when they see the cat meander towards the deeper recesses of the TARDIS. “Thank you.” 

She snickers. “I can’t believe you’re not a cat person.”

They pocket the magnifying – the vision inhancing device. “It seems to me that cats keep trying to kill me, in one way or another.”

“I…everyone thinks that, Doctor. But they can actually be quite sweet.”

They give her a Look. “Donna, I travel time and space for a living. I’m not talking about everyday house cats. But still, they tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth.”

Donna considers this with a somewhat concerned look. “I can keep the cat in my room, yeah,” she decides. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> could the dr just have dropped donna off at the start of the time she needed to catsit and then travel right to the end of it? sure, but i dont think donna trusts them to be that accurate with their piloting... 
> 
> find on me on tumblr @ [timeisweird!](https://timeisweird.tumblr.com/)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im not so sure how i feel about this one, but then again, this fic _is_ for bits and pieces and stuff that might not be my best work, and im not planning on doing anything more with what i'm posting for this chapter, so... 
> 
> cw: nothing that i'm aware of

The Doctor tries not to look too closely, when they’re able to. 

Curse of being a Time Lord, they’ve always called it; maybe they were being a bit melodramatic there, but occasionally, there’s something deeply unsettling about being able to read the Web of Time so well. For one thing, you’re never surprised once you get good at it. Things get boring. Better to overlook anything they see when at all possible. 

But somethings they can’t ignore. The turn of the stars and the planet they stand on, the fixed points and the things they could change, the things they could _fix,_ if they just reached out to touch the possibilities

Then there’s the golden sunshine, enough to warm but mottled with flares of incredible fury and scorching heat, as Donna walks into the console room. 

“Alright, nap’s over,” she says as the Doctor hauls themself up and out from under their Ship’s console. The sight of her timeline is like hazelnut roasted to just between the brink of being burnt, savory bitters that linger on the tongue. “Now where was it you wanted to visit next?”

Their hand goes to their chest. “Oh, Donna Noble, don’t you remember my tales of the ice obelisks of Upsilon-X4F2?”

She rubs the sleep from her eyes. “I remember you glossing over the fact that you fell off one of those four-story obelisks with absolutely nothing else to that story. Care to enlighten me on the details, Doctor?” she asks them, putting on a hint of a posh accent, no doubt just to annoy them.

They turn to face the controls, fiddling with a few dials as they grumble, “I’d rather not talk about it.”

She strides over to the console. “Come _on,_ tell me. You can’t just say you fell off an obelisk and stuck the landing, ten out of ten, extra points for the pose at the end.”

“If I tell you,” they start, already resigning themself to the fate, “you have to promise me that you won’t go telling Martha. I know you two like to chat sometimes.”

Donna considers this seriously. “Deal,” she says firmly, and though she seems reluctant to promise something like that, they can feel the sincerity in her voice and the echo-to-be truth in her timeline. 

The Doctor takes a breath. “Well, the ice obelisks of Upsilon-X4F2 aren’t smooth pillars. In fact, they’re more like the quills of a porcupine, with spikes all over the surface that act like barbs.” They scratch at the back of their head in thought. “Odd formations, really, I always meant to figure out how that happened. They don’t _seem_ artificial.” 

“Doctor,” she warns, wanting them to stay focused.

“Ah, right… So, I was at the top of this obelisk, and well, you know already that I fell, and I was wearing my coat–” 

Donna barks out a laugh before they can get any further. “Wait, wait, don’t tell me – your coat got caught on the barbs!” she asks suddenly. 

They stop their cheeks from blushing before she has the chance to point it out. “Well, yes. Saved this life, actually. Cut my fall in half, distance-wise. Made it much more survivable.” 

“Okay, okay, sure, you lived, obviously,” she says through her laughter. “Because that means your _coat_ got caught, but you – were you hanging there for ages hoping for someone to rescue you?” 

They fidget with a dial. “Not exactly… Well, not for long. I didn’t have to wait for someone to rescue me. The collar ripped through, eventually. Took about fifteen minutes.” 

She had just managed to calm herself down before they said that, but then she’s doubled over again, struggling to breathe through the fits of laughter. 

“It’s really not _that_ funny, Donna,” they protest.

“Actually, it is!” she says, putting a hand against the console to steady herself. “You – great big arrogant Time Lord, hanging by their damned coat off a spike of ice!” 

“It was only for eleven minutes!” They groan, and turn their focus to the controls properly now. “Oh, never mind. Let’s _move on_ , where did you want to go, then?” 

“Oh no, you’re not getting out of this that easily,” she says. “I want to see those ice obelisks.” 

The Doctor goes through the motions of warming up the Ship’s engines. “I am _not_ taking you to Upsilon-X4F2 if you’re just going to keep mocking me,” they say, even though they’re setting the coordinates for just that. “I’m the pilot here, I think that means I should get a little respect.” 

“You _earn_ respect, you don’t demand it,” she tells them seriously, crossing her arms as if this suddenly turned from friendly ribbing to a severe conversation about the intricacies of authority and consequences and honor.

“Alright, Donna Noble, then let me earn a bit of respect from you,” they say, going along with it, before they pull down a lever and send the Ship into a rough ride through the time vortex. It’s only a few moments before the TARDIS lands and everything settles again, the Doctor setting the handbrake with a flourish, before gesturing to the doors with a look that says _go on, then._

They watch from the console as Donna hurries to the doors, excitedly throwing them open to take in the promised scenery. Time shifts around her something strange, and there’s something almost familiar in the way her own timeline holds steady and strong amidst the white rapids of Upsilon’s-X4F2 ancient and turbulent history. 

“You said you wanted to see the obelisks, so fine, I’ll take a trip down embarrassing-moment memory lane for you,” the Doctor says as Donna turns around to gape at them. “And, you’ll want to grab a coat,” they add, before she can blurt out how bloody freezing it is. Something they remember from the Ood Sphere. “They’re _ice_ obelisks, Donna, what were you expecting? A tropical beach?” they add with a coy grin.

“Oh, don’t you get clever with me again,” she says, though she’s positively beaming from the sight of the sunlight sparkling like crystal against the white snow. She turns around to walk into the depths of the TARDIS, glaring at them as she passes them by. “You _can’t_ get clever with me, not when you’ve spent eleven minutes hanging from an obelisk by your coat!” 

They stare at her as she leaves to find some acceptable outerwear. There’s a tug in their mind, a hint of a thought of a reflective echo of the hearth-fire of Donna’s timeline. The chill of isolation-that-isn’t-really-isolation, because you don’t know any better, _can’t_ know any better. The taste of gentle static and lost memories and a life not quite fulfilled – but at least it’s a life at _all._

“Oi, you alright?” Donna asks with a look of concern, and they’re suddenly back in the console room. She stands at the edge of the console room, having just come back from her bedroom, now with her parka wrapped around her. 

The Doctor blinks, shaking their head and the thought from their mind at the same time. It’s only one outcome out of endless others, they tell themself. There’s no guarantee that’s what will happen, not if they can help it. 

They grin at her and say, “I’m just peachy. Now–” they nod towards the still-open doors letting the frigid air in. “–Ready for a hike?” 

She keeps up that concern for a moment more and almost looks like she’s going to start pushing back against them, calling their bluff. Then she adjusts her parka with a snappy motion. “Definitely. Let’s shove off and see some ice.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im a big fan of ten having some form of synesthesia that's associated with their sense of time. "just a hint of mint, must be the 1920s," anyone? [sideeyes xander]
> 
> anyway someone PLEASE get me to stop writing the same thing over and over again, and yell at me to work on tups again
> 
> find on me on tumblr @ [timeisweird!](https://timeisweird.tumblr.com/)


	6. Chapter 6

The lights above are like stars in the night sky, only they twinkle with a deep teal color, rather than white. Donna can’t make out any moons or nearby planets hanging low in the sky, like she’s seen elsewhere, but that’s not particularly unusual, given the diversity of solar systems and ecosystems and whatever other kind of systems there may be scattered around the depths of outer space.

What’s more unusual is the Doctor nudging her side with their elbow, before pointing up to the sky and saying, “Bio-luminescent geodes, naturally growing in the ceiling of these caverns – the Danorians break them open to give a bit of light, cause it’s when the innards are exposed to oxygen that the bacterium inside finally start to glow.” Which is how she finds out that they aren’t on the surface of some dark, lonely planet, but rather, they’re _below_ the surface of that dark, lonely planet.

“I can’t even see the walls,” she observes, taking a good look around. The darkness seems to go on for miles, but whether that’s true or not, she can’t tell.

The Doctor draws air in through their teeth. “Ooh, this particular cave system is about… the size of Durham, England, give or take a few miles? Plus, it’s dark, of course you can’t see that far.”

She can see their face perfectly fine, however, on account of the odd lightsaber-like torch they’ve got in their hand. She knows they can see her face perfectly fine too, so she gives them a good glare for that comment. And then when she finally feels the chill in the damp, musty air, she crosses her arms tightly over her chest and asks, “So what’re we doing in a cave, then?”

The Doctor gives her a hurt look. “Can’t we just have a good wander around an alien cave system without having any ulterior motives?”

“Not when moments before you were talking about going to space Italy. You did the same thing when we ended up at the Library, and look at how that turned out, Doctor.”

Their eyes widen. “Oh, it’s – this really isn’t going to be like the Library, Donna. You don’t need to worry about that, no _vashta nerada_ here. I’m just… paying a visit to a friend. Debt long overdue, that sort of thing.”

She chuckles. “I wouldn’t take you to be someone who’d pay back their debts.”

“And why’s that?” they ask, turning on their heel to lead her further down a path she can’t see, their torch in front of them like a sword and shield against the darkness.

“Because I’ve seen the parking tickets you keep shoving into the poor glove compartment, and I _know_ you haven’t paid any of them.”

“What, like _you_ pay _your_ parking tickets?” they counter, before the two of them burst into laughter that echoes distantly.

* * *

It’s one trek through a dark cave later that the Doctor and Donna are standing in a rather clean kitchen, albeit that said kitchen is made of rock and crystal and dirt and things that she typically wouldn’t associate with a hygienic place to cook. She only knows that it’s a kitchen at all because the occupant of this house is standing at the counter, cutting up what looks to be a sort of lobster-bug-snail hybrid into neat, cube-shaped pieces, _and_ that the Doctor thanks the occupant for letting the two of them stand in the kitchen with her, like it was some sort of honor.

The occupant of this house – the Doctor’s friend, whose name is Ukroxa or something like that – waves her hand dismissively. Donna thinks it’s a hand, at least. This alien is a lot less humanoid-based than she’s used to seeing. With sharp mandibles and a tiny, triangular mouth, the Doctor’s friend clicks out a few words. “ _Wa_ dhekk, Doctor. Au suirn not imagine – – raeyaukr rih’e _saukun_ to – – in the nak.”

Donna frowns, her hand automatically going up to feel for any sort of wax in her ear. Ukroxa’s voice sounds tinny, like it’s been run through a broken speaker a couple times and layered with white noise, all with a poor connection. Some of the words keep dropping out completely, leaving blank spaces in the sentences and in her head. “Doctor,” she whispers, “Is something wrong with the TARDIS?”

The Doctor’s gaze snaps to her unnervingly quick. “What? Why do you ask?” they whisper back, sounding mostly baffled, but a little bit concerned as well.

“I think the translation thingy’s on the brink. Can barely get a few words at all.”

They relax almost immediately. “Oh, that,” they say. “Xoyic is a telepathically-supported language. Sure, you could _verbally_ say a few words and get somewhere in a conversation, but you wouldn’t get very far without a knack for telepathy as well.”

Ukroxa pays no attention to their side-conversation. Instead, she picks up her plate of insectoid-lobster cubes and gestures with another limb for the Doctor to follow her into the den. As they walk, Donna continues with, “But I thought the TARDIS was telepathic, and I know you are too, so shouldn’t I… be able to bum a bit of that off you two and hear your friend just fine.”

The Doctor scratches at the back of their neck. “Well, yes, of course. Course you could, but after a bit you’d start getting a migraine, your neurons would start decaying under the stress of something they’re not meant to handle, and really it’d just lead to a whole lot of other complications involving brain cell death that neither of us would want to deal with.”

“Excuse me,” she asks flatly, now thinking about the time when they let her hear the Ood’s song – through telepathy.

They seem to sense her concern. “I mean, borrowing telepathy as a human for a little while is fine, but anything prolonged is not ideal. So the TARDIS is only letting you hear the verbal parts of Xoyic, which obviously isn’t very much.”

That feels a bit better, knowing that their weird spaceship is protecting her for once, rather than kidnapping her from her own wedding or moving the rooms around so that she gets lost on her way to get a glass of water in the middle night, oh, she could go on about it.

Ukroxa sits down in the middle of the den, legs crossed as she sets the plate of meat down in front of her; the Doctor and Donna follow suit, sitting across from their host. “Hasa, _saukun,_ eat,” Ukrosa says, nodding to the Doctor, without acknowledging Donna’s presence at all. “Te xoll’a the purpose a iyais visit. Au raxauma – – hear.”

The Doctor reaches for a piece of the meat, popping it into their mouth without even a second’s hesitation. “Ah right, yes, the reason I’m here,” they say as they chew (gross, thinks Donna), before patting down their pockets. “I could have sworn I had it written down somewhere…”

They pull a few odd items from their pockets, before putting them away again when nothing seems to be what they’re looking for. “Oh well, I can just tell you,” they say nonchalantly, before suddenly they’re giving Ukroxa a grim, solemn look. The air in the room goes frigid, and it has nothing to do with the thousands of tons of rock above everyone’s heads.

“In four days time, the rivers will run again, like they always do with the wet season,” they declare ominously, a steady, serious rhythm to their words that sounds unfamiliar in Donna’s ear. “Except now the waters will bring along the plague of last century. My advice is that you leave, before the others infect themselves, too overjoyed with the river’s return to take precautions.”

Ukroxa stares at the Doctor with narrowed eyes, a mannerism that should parse as suspicion, but instead feels like appreciation and worry. So that part of the translation circuits is still working. Then she nods reverently and says, “Wa dhekk, _saukun.”_

The Doctor grins abruptly, before standing up just as quick. “Well, debt repaid, then! Nice seeing you again, Ukroxa, hope everything goes well for you, avoid the waters, avoid the infected, all that good stuff.” They exit the den in a whirl of motion, leaving Donna to follow after them without even a moment to say goodbye.

* * *

“What the hell was that about?” Donna asks them, once they’re back on the path towards the TARDIS. “You can’t just wander into someone’s house, prophesize the return of some ancient plague, and then just leave.”

“Why can’t I?” they ask her, instead of giving a proper answer for once. “But I did, and if I could go back in time and change my choice, I’d still do exactly what I just did.”

“If you had walked into my kitchen and told me the moon was going to crash into the Earth, I would have slapped you back in time so you could take a few days to rethink your approach, Doctor. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

They glance back at her. “You really do slap people too much, Donna. Besides, I was repaying a debt. Ukroxa was waiting to hear something like that. An eye for an eye, a life for a life. She saved mine ages ago, so I saved hers. The Danorians take that thing very seriously.”

Donna ponders that for a moment. “Okay, I’ll take that. But did you have to be so dramatic about it?”

“If you keep criticizing how I’m doing things, I will drop you off back at home,” they warn.

“Oh, just you try to get rid of me, Spaceman.”

They hum. “Well, I wouldn’t be trying that hard, if I’m being honest.”

She smiles, and thanks whatever they worship around here that the Doctor can’t see that. Then something from earlier occurs to her. “Hey, wait, Ukrosa didn’t even say hi to me, what sort of rude friend of yours have you got?”

The Doctor’s steps falter for a moment, before they keep on walking. “Oh, that. Yeah, well, she thought you were a sort of…. Plant, or pet, maybe.”

_“What?”_

They shrug helplessly, glancing sharply back at her as though they’re watching out. “It’s a common thing among telepathic species, really, don’t get mad at me!”

“Why would she have thought I was a plant?” she demands. “It’s not like I’m standing in a goddamn clay pot.”

“But you’re barely even there – telepathy-wise,” they counter. “You were about as sensible as a brick to her,” and before Donna can shout again, they correct themselves, “Sensible as in perception, seeing things, sensing things, not as in, well, you know.”

“So she didn’t talk to me because she literally thought I couldn’t talk back to her? What about how _you_ were talking to me?”

“Well, in a way, you couldn’t talk to her. You aren’t telepathic, remember. And really, it’s a bit – well, a lot more complicated than just plants and not-plants, it’s more like, people not worth talking to, and people worth talking to, but it’s also based on perceived level of sapience and… I should probably just stop talking about it before I keep insulting you, yeah?”

“Yeah… probably for the best, thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was prompted to me by an anonymous ask on tumblr, who said, "For donna 10 stuff do you think you could do something with language? Like 10s accent or the tardis translator or something? Even donna being sensored! I always find those super interesting!" 
> 
> find on me on tumblr @ [timeisweird!](https://timeisweird.tumblr.com/)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this has already been posted on my tumblr, so if it's familiar to you, then that'll be why
> 
> cw: sylvia's talked about in this, so watch out for implied emotional abuse, shitty parenting, that sort of thing.

The Doctor plops themself down next to Donna without a word. They get sand on their trousers, but they don’t care about that right now. Instead, they’re focused on how their companion’s got her legs pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped around them as she rests her chin on her knees. Her gaze is forward, but they doubt she’s admiring the ocean’s wave crashing against the shore, or the glint and glimmer of starlight and moonlight dancing on the surface of the water. 

“You didn’t have to walk away,” she tells them in a mumble. “Wasn’t like it was anything important.” 

For a moment they wonder if they had made the wrong choice, leaving her alone like that after the phone call seemed to take a rather personal (and stressful) turn. “I thought you would have wanted some space,” they say. “Didn’t want me hanging around eavesdropping.” 

The sun has long since sunk below the horizon, but the absence of its warmth doesn’t mean the beach is cold. Donna still pulls her legs closer to her chest. Then she throws this at them: “You love to eavesdrop.” 

Their hand goes to the back of their neck, giving themself something else to do besides stew in this awkward exchange. “Well, yes, that could be true. But it tends to be less true when domestics are involved.” 

The thread of the conversation is lost for a moment, there. The only noises: the ocean, the crunch of the sand every time either one of them shifts their weight, the whispers and chirps of the local wildlife. Further out, the Doctor (and only the Doctor) hears the distant call of the TARDIS, a windswept golden melody forever present in the back of their mind. 

“I have to help my Mum plan her birthday party,” Donna finally says, breaking the silence. “Well, I’m supposed to be helping. It’s in a week.” 

They blink in surprise. “Oh, is that what this is about? You should have told me you wanted to pop home for a visit. It’s no problem at all, Donna, really,” they assure her, with a growing pang of concern at how she hadn’t told them this before. What if there were other times she had wanted to leave, but never said. Was there something more to that brief misunderstanding among all the ATMOS incidents, something they had overlooked?

Her hands clench, bunching up the fabric of her trousers in tight fists. “That’s not it,” she mutters. 

That stumps them for a moment. “Then what is?” 

A few more moments of an atmospheric lull as she mulls over the words. “Would it – what if I didn’t want to?” she asks. “Plan this party, help my mum, go home. What if I just stayed with you, bouncing around time and space doing whatever the hell I want, and never looked back.” 

"Oh."

Donna lets out a harsh sigh, and for once the Doctor is thankful that they don’t need to prompt her to keep going. It’s just – Every time I go home to see Mum, it’s ‘Oh, when are you going to stop traveling, you aren’t going to be young forever,’” she says, in a quality imitation of Sylvia Noble’s voice. “And ‘no man’s going to want to be with a woman with no goals in life, you’ve got to _do_ something.’” 

She looks to them, and the Doctor find that in her eyes, there isn’t so much sorrow but rather a bitter, simmering exasperation, ready to boil over into something worse. “And I was – I was _used_ to it, you know?” she asks them. “These phonecalls and those comments were just my everyday, but then I – then I left, and now it hurts even _more.”_

“And then with Lee, even in the middle of a bloody simulation, I was still thinking, ‘Oh, maybe she’ll finally be happy, maybe my mum will finally be proud of her own daughter,’” she continues. “Because apparently the only thing she cares about is marriage and kids and having a _proper_ job that isn’t temp work because once it’s temp work, it’s worthless.” 

For once, the Doctor can’t get a word in. Powerful waves crashing against the sand, retreating to prepare for another attack. She’s letting the dam open after a long, long time of pressure building. 

"But Lee wasn’t even _real,”_ Donna snaps at no one in particular, except maybe herself. “And it’s not like those are the things I care about. I like seeing new places, I like helping people, I like discovering stories, I don’t care about boyfriends and birthday parties, I’m not a _teenager.”_ She claws her hand at the ground, throwing a bit of sand towards the waves to be swept away moments later. It’s an action that the Doctor instantly parses as _childlike_ , an association that they’re then rather ashamed about, considering what she just said. Then she says, the final nail in the coffin, “So why does it _hurt_ so damn much?”

The Doctor knows a lot of things. Multidimensional engineering (transcendental and otherwise), coordinates for all the diners in the Mutter’s spiral that have the best milkshakes, coordinates for all the places that are moderately more useful than that, seven different kinds of calculus, advanced basket-weaving. But they don’t know how to respond to that. Damn the domestics. 

“Donna,” they try, saying her name softly, as though anything louder would be wrong.

"It’s fine,” she snaps, and then she’s pressing the palm of her hand to her eye. “It’s – whatever, it’s just a party.” 

They doubt that. “You don’t have to go, if you don’t want to,” they say instead. 

“I sort of do,” she says with a tone that tells them she really doesn’t want them digging deeper into that.

“Okay, well… you said you have to go in a week?” 

“Yeah, whatever that means in time-travel language.” 

They glance over towards the direction of the TARDIS, though the ship currently stands deeper into the nearby forest, too far to properly see. “Now, I’m not suggesting you just run away from your problems – though we can absolutely do that too if you wanted, I wouldn’t complain, couldn’t complain, really – but a week doesn’t mean much to me. What if we just took our time getting around to it?” 

Donna takes a breath, and there’s a hitch in the way she takes in air, telling them that she was on the verge of crying, for a moment there. “I don’t want to mess up my age or something, you know that. We’re keeping a close eye on all this time travel nonsense, Spaceman.” 

They let themself chuckle a little at that, hoping that it’ll ease the tension rather than draw it tighter. “Right, of course.”

She almost smiles at their laugh, and though it still sounds bitter and tired, the words are a bit lighter when Donna says, “Blimey, I think I’d just rather get it over with, at this point. Couldn’t stand counting down the days.” 

“We can do that too,” the Doctor says, and though they really want to get up and get _moving_ , they wait for Donna to make that decision. Once she moves to stand up, they’re jumping to their feet.

They start walking in the direction of the TARDIS, only to hear Donna’s laughter. They turn back around to look at her, confused. “What is it?” 

“You’ve got sand _all_ over your arse,” she tells them, still laughing as she points.

They can’t help but grumble. “Donna, I really have _no_ idea why you like the concept of beach holidays so much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompted to me by lopsidednebula on tumblr, who asked for "Ten and Donna planning a party for someone and it gets chaotic very quickly but they're trying their best," but obviously i went off on a tangent. still, it has the concept of planning a party in it, so... 
> 
> find me on tumblr @ [ timeisweird!](https://timeisweird.tumblr.com)


	8. Chapter 8

The Doctor finds the journals in a dim, forgotten corner of one of the TARDIS’s many libraries. There’s no lettering on the spines, or the covers, which draws their attention away from their original pursuit. There’s a couple of them, each design of each journal varying slightly, from rough leather to cheap cardboard to a hard material that pings when you tap your nail against it, from a civilization they can’t recall right now. They can tell from how the TARDIS has put them on this shelf together, however, that they form a series. 

They pull one from the shelf at random: this journal is bound with tan, smooth leather that feels soft against their skin. They brush a thumb against it, curious as to whether there are any indents hinting at a possible title, but none are found. 

Still no ideas on when or how they acquired these journals, nor the contents inside, they find themself opening it to the first page. Hand-written in a clear, familiar script. Best temp, even with a pencil.

They don’t get around to processing the words themselves before there’s a, “Doctor? Did you get distracted already?” and then Bill’s in their sight, looking curious as she walks towards them, also there’s also an apprehension in her step, a fear that maybe she walked in on a private moment. 

They don’t know if it counts or not. If it counts as anything at all, really. It’s just a journal. They haven’t even read the first page. 

“What’s that?” she asks, nodding towards what’s in their hands.

“Ah,” they say, shutting the cover and pocketing the journal. “Nothing you need to worry about.” 

Bill looks like she’s about to say something more, but then decided against it at the last moment. “Right, well, what about those scrolls you were going on about?”

“Yes!” the Doctor exclaim, clasping their hands together. “The ancient scrolls of the Solitudes. I’m sure they’ll be a great reference to use for your essay.” They gesture for her to follow them, and they lead the way out of these cluttered stacks and into another grouping of cluttered stacks, leaving the shelf of hand-written journals behind, one slot empty. 

It’s probably better that they stay unread after all. For the moment. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find on me on tumblr @ [timeisweird!](https://timeisweird.tumblr.com/)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a while, huh.
> 
> cw: none

Donna steps out of her room, refreshed from her nap and ready to face whatever rubbish the rest of the day might throw at her. And she steps out just in time to see the Doctor walking past. She frowns as they keep walking, then calls out, "Hey... what's wrong with your face?"

"Brief altercation with a nazrlin," they explain hurriedly, stomping down the hall towards the med-bay.

Donna follows after them, because there's no way she's just going to let that go. "It looks like you - like you've got _ringworm,"_ she says.

"It's _not_ ringworm!" the Doctor says, throwing their hands up and bringing them back down harshly, like a child who's buttons have been pushed just a few times too many by the class bully. The TARDIS, of course. 

"Okay..." She draws the syllable out as she thinks. "What's a nasal line, then?" 

"Nazrlin," the Doctor corrects, enunciating clearly. "It's sort of like a cross between a golpia and a hanét." Their heated embarrassment slowly fades as they explain, their stride slowing down to where Donna can keep pace, though they keep their face mostly angled away. "And a hummingbird," they add as an afterthought. "Hint of hummingbird." 

"Uh."

"There's been an infestation in the menagerie."

"You have a _menagerie?"_

"Of course I do," they snap. They click their fingers a few times. "Keep up, Donna Noble." 

"Oi, if you think you can just–" she starts, only for the Doctor to duck into the med-bay just as its door slides open with a hiss of hydraulics. 

They're already rummaging through the cabinets on the far wall. Donna pauses in the doorway, looking at the distance that the Doctor must have walked across in the time it took for her to walk through the door to the med-bay. Then she shakes her head, and decides she has better things to worry about.

The Doctor pulls out a palm-sized jar. They twist the cap off, and dip a few fingers into the fuschia cream inside. 

"What's that?"

They smear the cream over their wounds as they answer. "Nazrlin cream." 

Donna walks up to them. "Is that cream for nazrlin, or cream made of nazrlin?"

"Yes," they say. Then wince as some of the cream gets in the corner of their eye. "Ah, for the goddesses' sake-" they swear, screwing their eye shut as they look down at their hands holding cream and a jar in horror.

Donna rolls her eyes and grabs a paper towel. "Oh, hold still." She grabs their cheek and dabs the paper towel on her tongue to wet it.

"Don't do that," the Doctor whines, just before she touches the paper towel to their face. "That's disgusting."

Donna pulls her hand back sharply. "I'm trying to help you here, numbnuts. And I've seen you dive headfirst into a pool of mud."

"What does that have to do with you putting your _spit_ on my eye?" 

She glares at them, before touching the paper towel to their face anyway, wiping the cream away before they can complain more. "There, that wasn't so bad," she says. 

They pout anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find on me on tumblr @ [timeisweird!](https://timeisweird.tumblr.com/)


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: none that i can think of, besides being set in a cemetery

The rain quickly has you soaked in the few moments it takes for you to fumble around in your bag for a flimsy umbrella barely bigger than your hand. It expands to cover you entirely, thankfully, but the wind pulls and tugs at it like a pack of ravenous dogs tearing at prey. So you say your last goodbyes to your late sister's grave and hurry down the path back towards your car.

You think that you'll stop for nothing, lest the sudden weather wash you away. Then you see a body standing knee deep in a half-dug grave, and you stop in your tracks. 

The lady has a shovel, and she digs it into the ground with one hand and pushes her dripping-wet hair out of her eyes with the other. Her clothes hang heavily off her frame with mud and water, and she shivers violently but continues to dig. 

"'Donna, you've got to do the grave digging, see,'" the lady mutters in a sharp tone, clearly mocking another person – though it's only the two of you in this cemetary. "'So I can bugger off and have a cup of tea and a scone with our suspect. You'll be fine, Donna, you're tough.'"

The lady's British, you realize. You speak up before your brain can point out that it might not be the best idea to disturb someone digging up a grave in a thunderstorm. "Hey, uh, should you really be doing that?" you call out to the lady. "You know, in the rain? Or at all?" 

The lady stops digging and looks to you, taking a moment to stomp her shovel back into the ground. She's clearly surprised by your presence, but she doesn't flinch or act frightened. She just glares with the exasperation of someone down to their last few straws. "What?"

"It's raining," you say.

"Yeah," she says. "Always seems to rain in cemeteries."

"This is Seattle," you say, for reasons not even you can figure out. "It's always raining." 

"Uh-huh."

She keeps looking at you, and you shift your weight awkwardly under her gaze as the rain taps noisily against your umbrella. 

"I'm gonna go now," you say, pointing gingerly towards the cemetery gates.

"Good idea," the lady says before she grabs her shovel and throws another bit of dirt out of the growing hole. 

You stare a moment longer, then turn your back and walk away, wondering if it's the emergency or non-emergency line you call in this situation, or if you should call at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> find on me on tumblr @ [timeisweird!](https://timeisweird.tumblr.com/)


End file.
